


I am Ordis, ship Cephalon.

by Raphael_J_HM



Category: Warframe
Genre: F/M, Fluffy, Romance, little bit of pda, little bit of violence, vulgarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 01:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11933859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphael_J_HM/pseuds/Raphael_J_HM
Summary: The operator lands in some hot water, and it's up to ordis and lotus to get her out of it. Can they pull it off?





	1. Well, shit.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first actual fanfic, instead of just random poetry. I've never posted before, I'm a bit nervous!

        It was supposed to be your typical rescue mission.

 

        Get in, get the hostage, get out. Maybe slaughter a battalion or two on the way.

 

        There was nothing unusual about it when she got there. No alarms, no unexpected threats. Just the dark and the unforgiving, endless Neptune rain.

 

        There were no sirens set off as she went through the base. No alerted crew, no traps, no lasers or force fields.

 

        The fact that it was so easy should have been a warning in itself.

 

        When the hostage refused to move from the back of the cell, she should have known. When the door closed behind her, she figured out. And when the “hostage” turned out to be a specter, the tenno’s mind jumped to the worst.

 

        They had a mole. Ordis and the Lotus were in danger. The liset wasn’t made for combat. If they were ambushed by a ship while waiting for her, things would get ugly fast.

 

        There were no ways out, her abilities wouldn’t work. Damn bastards must have built it special for her. Just as she opened her mouth to swear, the Lotus flooded her comms, her voice barely steady from the panic she was fighting.

 

        “Tenno, Tenno can you hear me!?” It was warbled, and struggling to stay connected, but the signal managed to stay. Lotus must have boosted it dangerously high. “A Fomorian is on the way, you need to get to extraction now! It’ll tear your warframe apart-”

 

        The Tenno cut her off. Speaking was a rarity, let alone an interruption.

 

        “You need to leave without me.”

        “What?”

        “The Fomorian isn’t for me, it’s for you. I won’t be able to get out in time. Leave.”

 

        Silence.

        A breath.

 

        “I can’t lose you Tenno.” Gentler now. Scared. If she didn’t know better She’d swear the Lotus was her mother.

        

        Despite the danger she was in, she smiled. Sometimes she forgot about that humanity.

 

        “Our cause is lost without you. There are more like me.” The Tenno slowly drew her bow back when she heard the door hiss, getting ready to open. No doubt there would be a horde of Grineer waiting on the other side. “Ordis, get the Lotus out of here.”

        “Operator!” Ordis almost wailed, his distress plain as day. “ **ARE YOU STU** - Have you gone mad!?”

 

        “That is an  _order_ , cephalon.”

 

Silence again. She knew he was trying to think of an argument. He always wanted to save her. It was one of the things she found endearing in him. One of many things.

 

“..Yes, operator.”

 

The heartbreak in his voice was almost enough to change her mind. Almost. It certainly made her heart twist.

 

“Fly swiftly, Ordis.”

 

“Operator, if you die I’ll ᵇᶻᶻᵗ  **make them pay.”**

And then it was silent.

 

She was alone.


	2. Denial

“Lotus, the Operator will be okay right???”

“Ordis-”

 

“She’ll make it through right!??”

 

“Ordis please-”

 

“W-We’ll get a transmission any moment no-”

“Ordis.”

 

Lotus sighed. It wasn’t the first time she’d lost a tenno. It wouldn’t be the last. But it hurt every time. Her tenno died to protect them, no less. If she was capable of crying, then at that moment, she would be.

“Ordis….plot course for the Strata relay.”

 

“Wh...Why, Lotus?”

 

“We..” A pause, a moment to steady her voice. “We need to find you a new Operator.”

 

Ordis was, well, uncharacteristically silent. For quite a while actually. The answer Lotus got actually startled her.

 

“No.”

 

“What?”

 

His deeper voice slipped, loud, angry. “ **Did I stutter, lady?”**

He cleared his throat (or at least made the sound, seeing as he possessed no throat to clear). “I am Ordis, ship cephalon. I serve the Operator, and I will see her home safely. There must be a way. There are several unused warframes the Operator collected, can we not use one of those?”

 

“She’s...she’s dead, Ordi-”

 

“The operator is not dead.”

 

Lotus stopped in her own thoughts. Was...was it denial? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps there was a chance her tenno was still alive. In many ways, the tenno being alive at all was nothing short of a miracle. Perhaps, just once, she could act on chance, rather than data.

 

She opened her mouth to speak, before hesitation and doubt had its chances to set in.

 

“Not directly, no, but perhaps..”


	3. Once upon a dream

 

 

Many a month ago, the tenno had approached Lotus asking about a personal favor. A gift for her beloved cephalon. Ordis always asked her what she had seen on her missions, what the world was like beyond the docking ports. The tenno wanted a way to let him come with her, and see for himself.

 

So one night, she asked Simaris to speak to Ordis and keep him occupied (scan enough things for him, and the high and mighty cephalon was willing to do favors, turns out. That, and he wanted to see if what the tenno wanted was possible.) while she went to Lotus to ask directly, so that Ordis couldn’t hear.

 

“Would it be possible to use warframe style technology to make Ordis a body?”

 

To be honest, the question had surprised Lotus. She’d never even thought of such a possibility. This tenno had a tendency to surprise her often, from her extreme affection for her cephalon, to her odd habit of keeping any animals that were friendly as pets. (The current set was four hyekka, rescued from a base on earth. They had started following the tenno instead of attacking her, and she ended up bringing them back. Most of the time the tenno found them new homes. Lotus had a feeling the smallest one was here to stay.) But, seeing as how the tenno had worked tirelessly since the moment she had awoken, Lotus figured that a favor was long deserved.

 

“Very well, tenno. I will see what I can do. I assume you wish to keep this a surprise?”

 

The vigorous head nodding told her quite enough. It made her smile. A once rare gesture from Lotus, now common. This tenno was quite good at that.

 

“I will work with Simaris then, and perhaps cephalon Suda as well. I understand you are in good standing with her, perhaps it can help. Perhaps this will help us in our cause as well.”

 

The math and the formulation of a blueprint took months, and that was the easy part. Simaris insisted the tenno hunt twice as much to make up for it. Which she did so, gladly. Upon the completion of that came the challenge of hunting for needed components without giving it away to Ordis. It was tedious, and complicated, but for the tenno’s beloved cephalon, it was worth it. And for Lotus, as risky as it was, it was worth giving the tenno a chance to be themselves, rather than the faceless protector. They were about to set out to hunt the final components when Lotus got a transmission from Darvo, saying that a trusted source found the location of a critical hostage. Trusted source, indeed. The tenno was the one who insisted they take care of the mission first.


	4. Devotion

        “We will have to find a way to gather the last components to complete the build.” Lotus finished telling the cephalon, who listened intently, storing every word. “I will contact Darvo, to see if he has any to spare. But the majority of his resources will likely go to tracking down the traitor. Most likely, we will have to find our own way.”

 

        Ordis paused. “What about the hyekka?”

        “The hyekka?”

 

        “Surely they are more intelligent than the-  **mutts** - kubrow the operator used to own. We could hack into a weakly guarded cache remotely, and they could bring it back.”

 

        “Is that possible?”

 

        “If...if they

~~_love_ ~~

         care for the operator as much as I do, then perhaps it is.”

\----

 

        It was….unusual, to say the least. The hyekka snuck in easily enough. A small group of attack animals, the Grineer simply assumed the trainer was nearby. When they came running back with boxes dragging behind them? Another story. A rather comical one, actually.

 

        The smallest one (dubbed “Momo” by the operator) was hurt badly enough to be put into stasis. She would have to stay there until the stabilizer leveled out. The other three were tired, but otherwise okay. Between the four of them, they managed to snag just enough to finish the build. If the operator wanted to keep all of them after this, Ordis wouldn’t mind.

 

        Waiting for the build to finish was agony. Ordis tucked himself away in mission briefings and data files, going over every possible relevant detail, everything that could happen. Anything to push away his fears.

 

        The operator was alive.

 

        She had to be.

 

        The idea that she wasn’t, it was...it..

 

        He had no heart to wrench, and yet he felt that. No throat to close, and yet, his voice wouldn’t come to him. No, she wasn’t dead. The idea that she was was unbearable, unfathomable. Unacceptable. He had already known an eternity without her, and even knowing she wasn’t dead, it was painful nonetheless. No. He would save her, or die trying.

 

He would save the operator.

 

His operator.


	5. A final word, a final hope

        It took her everything not to scream when the electricity coursed through her body again. Typically, her warframe took the brunt of the damage, but they had stripped her of her shields, her weapons, and her abilities. Her frame was cracked in several places, mask included. They’d hear her if she screamed. She refused to give them that pleasure.

 

        They had overwhelmed her with pure numbers on Neptune. Somehow they had knocked her out, and she woke up here, strapped to a table with needles haphazardly jabbed into the joints of her warframe. They had waited for her to wake up. They wanted her rested, ready to fight.

 

        They wanted to break her.

 

        When their torture failed to yield the results they wanted, she was unstrapped and thrown back into that same damn cell that trapped her in the first place. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. Her comms were too damaged to send out anything, but intact enough to record what she thought would be her last. In case anyone found her remains after she was dumped. She had a gut feeling it would be Lotus, if anyone.

 

        Lotus…

        

        And Ordis.

 

        Did he have a new operator by now? They’d be mad to assume she was still alive. She lost track of how she’d been here a while ago. Maybe a week or so. If he did have one, did he accept them? He was always so stubborn, it could be so cute..

 

        She felt her eyes burn just a bit. Ordis. She never did get to tell him about that body. Hopefully the new operator wouldn’t take it apart for parts. Her beloved cephalon. She prayed he wasn’t thrown aside. Once you got past the “malfunctions,” he was simply lovely.

 

        She opened her mouth to speak into the communicator, but closed it again, unsure of what to say.

 

        Then it came to her. This would be her last message. She would make it for the one she missed the most.

 

        With a heaving chest and shaking voice, she spoke into the comm, as loudly as she could muster.     


	6. Soon

Ordis had expected the body to feel foreign, yet he adjusted to it in seconds.

        

        The transfer was easy enough. Lotus had no problem controlling the liset. He took a few moments walking around, becoming familiar with his new vessel. The power core pulsed in his chest, like a heartbeat. Had the operator recalled how he enjoyed listening to hers? A hand rested over his chest as he thought about it. His gentle, thoughtful operator. Every part of this design was filled with that affection and care. He would cherish this gift as much as possible.

 

        To let his use of a warframe be possible, modifications were made. Sensors, additional parts to allow Ordis to use the frame’s abilities through his mind, rather than his body. Lotus made it as akin to piloting the liset as possible, for fast adaptation. He opted for a rhino frame. His plan was to find the operator as fast as possible, and blast through anyone that stood in his way.

 

        They were as ready as they would ever be.

 

        With that, they plotted a course for Neptune.


	7. Drifting

The only thing she heard in her cell was the sound of the pounding rain. Day and night (was it even night? She couldn’t tell, no windows), it was the only constant. Some days they’d drag her out and torture her all day. Some days they’d just let her fester. Whichever they felt like, she supposed. She could barely stay awake now. Her eyes drooped slowly, her vision blurred. She swore she heard someone scream, distantly, from outside her cell door, but she was already drifting off into the comforting black that called her.

She wondered if it was the void.


	8. A rescue, and realization

         _“Transfer the prisoner to maximum security NOW!!”_

_“There’s no time!!”_

 

        Admittedly, Ordis was enjoying barreling through the Grineer. His mind simply translated their yelling, and confirmation of a prisoner was all he needed. **“WHO'S IN CONTROL NOW, SUCKERS!?”** He yelled, absolutely demolishing a dozen that stood in his way. These people, no, these beasts hurt the operator. They took her from him. He held no hesitations in ending them.

        

        When he got to the cell block, he smashed the control panel behind him, slamming the block door shut and crushing any Grineer unfortunate enough to be standing in the doorway. Quick work was made of the guards, and he made his way to the cell panels.

 

        He had no idea if she was here. They could have been speaking of someone else, a different hostage. Even if that was the case he would save them, but be disappointed nonetheless. Even Simaris wouldn’t be able to rival the hunt he would undertake if she wasn’t here. He would find her, wherever she was, because she wasn’t dead. No, it was impossible.

 

        He was hesitant to hit the button when he got through the console. Opening the door would reveal if she was there, if she was alive. What if he was wrong?

 

        No, he wasn’t. He had to believe that. If there was anyone that would always be there, anyone who wouldn’t let him down, it would be his operator.

 

        He was almost afraid he was hallucinating when he opened the door. There she was, lying on the ground. Unmoving. She looked worse for wear, the cracked remnants of her warframe looked scorched. He was almost afraid to get closer, to see if the truth was what he dreaded, but..

 

        His scans picked up a weak, but steady heartbeat.

 

        Had he been human, he would have sobbed.

 

        The frailty of how he picked her up and cradled her would have one think she was made of glass. Being in a body of his own, for first time, Ordis realized how small his operator was. No wonder Lotus worried so much, you wouldn’t think such a small woman could pack such a punch. He found a vent in the floor, and jumped, intending to sneak his way back to the liset.


	9. I am my operator's cephalon.

      The operator slept for three days. They made a health pod of sorts to let her rest in, like a stasis chamber that accelerated healing. Ordis tasked himself with repairing his operator’s ruined warframe. It was in that process that he found the message she recorded, when she thought her moments in the cell would be her last.

 

        He was shocked speechless to find it was made for him.

 

        The voice was hoarse, soft, and shaky, but it was hers.

 

        “ _My dearest cephalon,_

_Don’t blame yourself or Lotus for this. It isn’t your fault. I don’t regret what I did, and if I had  the chance to do it over, I wouldn’t change a thing._

_I wouldn’t be the person I am today without you, and if there’s anyone in this universe worth dying  for,_

_ it's you, Ordis. _

_It’s selfish to tell you this now, but I love you._

_Forgive me.”_

 

He shouldn’t have the capacity to blush, yet his face burned all the same. The operator!? In love with  _him_??? He, a broken, malfunctioning cephalon? By all means it shouldn’t be possible, but..

 

Lots of things that shouldn’t be possible seemed to have happened lately.

 

And..perhaps...perhaps he felt the same about his operator.

 

Slowly, he made his way to the pod she was asleep in, and lifted the glass lid so he could sit by her side. When she stirred, he laid his forehead on hers, and softly shushed her until she lay still.   
  
        “Nothing bad will happen so long as I am here.” He murmured, closing his own eyes. “I am Ordis, ship cephalon. I protect my operator.”

 

**“And I think I love you too.”**


	10. AFTERNOTES

Wow! I wasn't expecting this to get this many views, let alone all the feedback! thank you!

 

I'm currently working on something for Shaxx from Destiny. I've been playing destiny 2 and he's absolutely stolen my heart. It WILL have spoilers, however! Those who haven't played, beware!


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